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GRANNY’S ATTIC Off The Land WildGoose Studios WGS416CD


This trio formed when at secondary school in 2009, and they’ve been steadily building up a following ever since, but the biggest step for- ward came when they reached the final of the BBC Young Folk Awards in 2014 – since which point, and most especially this past year, they’ve been proving a must-see attrac- tion at festivals up and down the land. And they’re still only just in their 20s.


Granny’s Attic are Cohen Braithwaite- Kilcoyne (melodeon, concertina), George San- some (guitar) and Lewis Wood (fiddle, man- dolin); all three sing, and distinctively too. Each of the trio has a very well-defined musi- cal personality, yet they also work together completely assuredly as a team, as tracks like The Death Of Nelson and the set of hornpipes (Rod’s) demonstrate par excellence. But it’s also the incredible energy with which these lads put the music across. Each of the three is also well able to deliver a credible and accomplished solo performance outwith the group context. There’s a particularly authori- tative quality to Cohen’s vocal delivery, a pol- ished maturity beyond his years; his singing displays a tremendous assurance and an unmistakable natural presence. As a singer, George has much to offer too, with a very dif- ferent timbre to Cohen’s and a believably youthful (yet maturely considered) expres- siveness. Lewis is also an impressive singer, though it’s probably his exceptional fiddle skills that get him noticed most.


The bulk of the material Granny’s Attic


performs on Off The Land (their third release if you count an early EP) is solidly traditional in origin, the exceptions being three instru- mental tracks containing fine tunes com- posed by Lewis (two more of his tunes sur- round Cohen’s dramatic rendition of Two Brothers (aka Child Ballad 49) which forms the CD’s finale). Other high points are espe- cially fine accounts of Horkstow Grange, the Young Hunting variant False Lady and the broadside Country Hirings, all given a persua- sive Granny’s Attic collaborative treatment. Clearly this is a band to watch.


www.grannysattic.co.uk David Kidman


A PRESENÇA DAS FORMIGAS Pé De Vento CPL Music CPL010


This is very fine indeed. It’s in the same terri- tory as the ineffably classy and memorably melodious performers I was seeing, particu- larly in the late evenings at Mai-Té, during June’s EXIB Música showcase event in Évora. As there, I’m kind of in awe of the seemingly effortless, monster musicality and welcoming joie de vivre, which must be born of lives sur- rounded by singing and playing. Real tradi- tion, not of age-old songs but of the making of new ones shaped by what went before.


It begins with two really catchy, very


clever, intricate but swingy fast-patter songs sung by Sara Vidal and Manuel Maio that are very Portuguese, but don’t fitting into the usual named categories; something like a faster version of the happy up-tempo end of fado. Then Vidal takes the lead in a more well-known style of vocal fado with its gen- tle guitar swung chug, silvery guitarra and sultrily swooping melody. As it moves onward through an ever-changing land- scape of songs and instrumental work the whole album is fascinatingly, fluidly polyrhythmic, a clear, strong bridge between the musics of Portugal and Brazil.


There’s liquid, choro-like mandolin and soaring violin from Manuel Maio (who also composed most of the material on the


album), silky accordeon from Nuno Silva, underpinned by André Cardoso’s guitars and Portuguese guitarra, Miguel Cardoso’s elec- tric and double basses and Rui Lúcio’s drums and percussion, with well-integrated guests on piano, vibraphone, electric guitar, brague- sa and cavaquinho. Throughout, whether in the tongue-twisting patter songs or slower ones, the vocals radiate cherishing sensitivity and warmth.


The connection with the great Portu -


guese singer-songwriters of the ‘intervention song’ era, and its subsequent developments, is drawn by a guest lead vocal from João Afonso, nephew of the legendary José ‘Zeca’ Afonso; other guest lead singers are the band’s earlier female singer Teresa Campos and Spanish singer-songwriter Luis Pastor.


Not the most tripping-off-tongue band name (it means ‘the presence of ants’), and the slightly cartoonish pack design isn’t flashy or pretentious (this 2016 international release on a German label keeps the original 2014 design); but this, the band’s second album, deserves to become a classic.


www.cpl-music.de Andrew Cronshaw


TOM SHAKA


Sweet & Mean Blind Lemon Records BLR- CD1501


ADAM FRANKLIN


Outside Man Blind Lemon Records BLR- CD1503


THOMAS SCHLEIKEN Echoes Blind Lemon Records BLR-CD 1601


What do a Yank, a Brit, and a German have in common? They all have a new album released on Blind Lemon Records, a small label dedi- cated to acoustic guitar music, run by Thomas Schleiken based in the small north west Ger- man village of Ganderkesee whose catalogue is slowly but steadily growing.


Sweet & Mean is Tom Shaka’s sixteenth album and his second for Blind Lemon. Born in 1953 in Connecticut, USA, he moved to Europe in the mid-’70s where he’s performed both solo and with such US bluesmen as Louisiana Red and Honeyboy Edwards. It’s noticeable how much Honeyboy Edwards’ vocal style has influenced Shaka especially on Ride With Me Tonight, while on Shaka’s own Come On Over Baby, a slow twelve-bar, his vocal inflections lean more towards Louisiana


A Presença Das Formigas


Red. Shaka’s guitar playing lights up another original song They Don’t Understand These Blues with a lot of zippy runs. He mostly plays an amplified resophonic guitar, switching to electric guitar for the last two tracks, and he also plays harmonica in a rack and adds propulsion with foot-stomps!


Tom’s selected a good programme of songs covering a variety of blues styles plus a couple of non-blues instrumentals; Cajun Stomp and Malaguena (correctly credited to Cuban Ernest Lecuona Casado, whereas Blind Boy Fuller’s Walkin’ My Troubles Away is cred- ited to Tarheel Slim who did record the song in 1974, some 38 years after the original). Credits notwithstanding, the excellent live recording captures a good strong solo perfor- mance from Shaka whose long experience pays plenty of dividends.


The Brit is West Sussex-based Adam Franklin (not the synonymous front man of alternative rock band Swervedriver) whose debut Blind Lemon CD gives him plenty of room (21 tracks) to demonstrate his com- manding guitar abilities, particularly his open-tuned slide technique. Outside Man was recorded live at Schwarzes Ross, Bookholzberg (the same venue as used for Tom Shaka) with the recording successfully capturing the clear acoustic, slightly metallic, tones of Franklin’s National resophonic guitar and, on two tracks, his ukulele. The clarity of the recording also highlights the thinness of Franklin’s voice which, hard as he might try, is simply not a blues voice and doesn’t convince the same way Shaka’s does, not just because he’s British and Shaka’s American, as there are plenty of British singers who deliver the goods.


On the positive side Franklin has some strong original material that fits well with the older blues he covers from the likes of Tampa Red, Robert Johnson, and Blind Boy Fuller (including Walking My Troubles Away, cor- rectly credited here to Fuller). The album gains momentum through some nicely paced pieces before arriving at a powerhouse per- formance of Son House’s Preaching Blues with it’s all-out driving rhythm, thundering the song along. As he’s not going to top that he wisely scales back for the last pair of num- bers (Sonny Boy Williamson’s Cross Your Heart and Robert Johnson’s Love In Vain) on which he’s accompanied sensitively by Ger- man harmonica player Thomas Freund.


Freund crops up again on five tracks of his friend Thomas Schleiken’s third album. First came Blue Tunes in 2009, followed by Beech Mountain Hill in 2012, and now Echoes which continues his fascination with


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